[manudude03]

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Just for clarity, you are south here. Weak opps, MPs scoring.

Partner leads the ♦7 (4th best or top of nothing) which goes to the 4-K-5. What do you lead at trick 2?

[mike777]

6d

Nonexpert answer.

[kenrexford]

3 of hearts.

[MrAce]

Assuming that was a 15-17 NT, pd has at most 5 hcp. Playing a ♥ now is putting all our eggs in one basket, and even if you find pd with Q you need him to hold another ♥ to play and an entry to play it. At MP this is a fancy but not a wise move to me.

My other options are spade 9 and diamond continuation. Spade continuation needs to find pd with something like KJxx or AJxx that he decided not to lead. And this allows declarer to hold his main entry to dummy when the clubs are set for him. Not having the 3rd spade is another issue even if I manage to find pd with KJxx ♠. If they open 1 NT with 5 card major that is another issue.

I will continue ♦ 6. After all it looks like declarer will need to play spades himself at some point and if I am lucky I find pd with something like QT872 in diamonds. OR declarer may have a doubleton ♥ and he may come down to % 50 guess to use his clubs.

♦ 6 it is for me,

EDIT: All of this does not make sense after I just saw 1 NT was 12-14. Now a shift looks more attractive.

[alok c]

♠9

[Tramticket]

I return a diamond.

On a good day partner has led 4th highest. But if not, it is a safe, passive defence and it removes an entry to dummy if declarer's plan is to set up a long club.

[kenrexford]

Y'all don't understand bridge polls. Bridge polls arise because the obvious option is not right. That, then, tends to exclude a diamond return.

Bridge polls also tend to have as a resolution the play that seems unwise but that has something sexy going on. Leading into the KJx in hearts seems unwise unless you have read or thought about this situation before or apply the first principle and then realize that the heart return has a fun development. Hence, leading a heart starts to stand out.

Bridge polls often have a Monkey option. Including the insane club return as an option might be just completing the four suits, but my take is that the inclusion of the club option is designed to not draw attention to the heart switch as an option.

Finally, what about spades? The spade return is for those who panic unnecessarily. "Safe" is often their choice, so you have to cater to these folks. A spade return could be a "Monkey" option, but it is no silly enough to qualify. Just a normal overly passive option included.

I mean, the poll really is about whether to switch to hearts or not. Sure, a small minority choosing between golf and fishing opt to stay home and miss the nice day, but the real issue is those two. All the obscuring seems to further compel the heart switch as working.

[akwoo]

It's rather hard to imagine partner has led from 72 doubleton in a minor against 1N. If we were playing second-highest from 3 or 4 small then I'd be a bit more worried.

[rmnka447]

Should you return a ♦?

Some analysis might help with an answer.

First, let's consider whether partner's 7 ♦ lead could be the top of nothing. Based on the cards held, seen, or played to the first trick, if partner's lead is top of nothing it must be from ♦ 72 as all the other cards lower than the seven have been i'ded. That would leave opener with QJ10985 to start. But with that holding it would be less likely that opener would open 1 NT and the play to the first trick would have been ♦ A to unblock followed by another ♦ to set up 4 more ♦ tricks. So, it appears it can't be top of nothing.

So what else can it be?

The obvious suggestion is that it's fourth best. The missing cards after the first trick are QJ10982. Three of the cards from Q-8 have to be held if it's a fourth lead. If partner held a sequence (QJ10, J109, 1098) of 4 or more cards, the lead would have been the top honor. If partner held an inner sequence (Q109, Q98), the lead would have the top of the sequence. Also with a near sequence(QJ9, J108) partner might well decide to the top card also. That leaves Q1087, QJ87 or J987 as the holdings (with or without the 2) from which a ♦ 7 would be led.

Any other possibilities?

It could be that partner decided to lead low or (rarely) middle from 3 to an honor rather than give something away from some other holding. If so, a further ♦ lead will help set up at least 2 additional tricks for declarer no matter what partner's holds.

Partner is marked with at least a few HCPs. Dummy has 8, you have 11, and opener 12-14. That totals 31-33 between the three hands so partner has to have 7-9. So it looks like partner may hold anywhere from 4-8 count outside of ♦. So the possibility remains of a trick or two outside of ♦ for partner.

Any other considerations?

Dummy's ♣ could be a source of tricks. Partner can't hold 4 ♣ else opener would be bidding 1 NT with a stiff ♣. Partner can't hold a stiff ♣ and just 4 ♦ either because if 4-4 in the majors is held opener would be opening 1 NT with a stiff ♥. If partner can have only 3 hearts along with 4 ♦ and a stiff ♣, partner would have to have 5 ♠ and would likely have lead them instead of a ♦. In any case, it may important to knock out one of declarer's entries to dummy to possibly block the set up and cashing of ♣ long suit tricks.

So it comes down to a ♥ or a ♦ return.

At MPs, I'm returning partner's ♦ with the ♦ 6 . There's no reason to believe partner is not making an attacking lead against 1 NT passed out. It knocks out one of dummy's entries.

[neilkaz]

I'd have returned a ♦. rmnka447's fine analysis and my partners' lead tendencies both make me this this would be very clear.

[gszes]

diamond is partner trying to hit me? highly unlikely in most systems a one suited hand can most easily be shown in PO seat and we failed to do that here (a better problem is do we try and fight with 2h bid or not?) so there is no reason partner is not trying to set up their own suit. It is not always merely card reading but bidding (or lack thereof) can help also.

[sfi]

At first glance a diamond looks normal. I want dummy to have fewer entries to potential club tricks than it does at the moment.

[shyams]

Probably a great hand to conduct a sim? I voted ♥ but I now feel that at MPs it's perhaps higher risk than I previously thought.

[Winstonm]

I think I need to lead a spade back and allow partner to continue diamonds.

[manudude03]

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I thought it was close between diamonds and hearts, but figured if we needed to play diamonds, it probably wouldn't be necessary to play a diamond now. Declarer completely butchered the hand winding up down 4, but a heart beats it with best play (a spade works too provided partner can find the ♥Q switch...). A diamond should work in practice too.

[kenrexford]

See?